Dropout Data Raise Questions on 2 Fronts

A collision of those two views by prominent scholars was inevitable, and in the past several weeks it has hit the education policy world in an explosion of articles, e-mails and public debates, some quite heated. Experts disagree over who is right, and some say the truth may be somewhere in between. But the argument has aggravated a widespread feeling that information on how many children are disappearing from public schools is not nearly as accurate as it should be.

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I’m among the experts debating this issue. I’m disappointed in Mishel whose work I usually hold in high esteem. I’ve read Mishel’s book and it misleads the reader by ignoring obvious inconsistencies in data on New York City, Florida and Chicago that he relegates to the appendix. In fact, wherever Mishel looks at actual student record data that he deems reliable, he too finds a dropout crisis. This is contrary to his own conclusions based on surveys with admitted problems of years surveyed, sample design, and undercounts. Specifically, Mishel’s survey-based estimates of the national rate graduation rates are 15% to 35% higher than the actual record data he argues are accurate in Florida, Chicago and New York City, the places he looked at more directly.
Mishel finds that Florida’s four year graduation rate for Blacks is about 55%, and Hispanics about 60%, and these rates Mishel admits are inflated by counting GED recipients as graduates. In Chicago, Mishel finds that Black 19 year old males have a graduation rate of 39% and Hispanic males 51%. In New York City Mishel points to an extended 7 year completion rate for all students of just 60%. The New York City rates he cites are actually about 44% for the 4 year graduation rate according to the State of New York. Mishel ignores the fact that only the 4 year rate meets the requirements for evaluating schools and districts under the No Child Left Behind Act.
These alarmingly low numbers are consistent with the analysis from Chris Swanson and many other researchers, besides Jay Greene, that we have relied upon at Harvard.
Mishel’s own numbers indicate a crisis. There is an urgent need to address the crisis facing minority youth. Improving the data collection should be part of these efforts rather than cause for further delay.
Finally, Mishel offers no useful recommendations and would have us wait many years until we have more accurate data before we address the problem. He acknowledges the crisis in urban schools where we find high percentages of minority youth yet appears to want to stay the course, which would continue to put minority students at a great disadvantage.
Daniel J. Losen, Senior Education Law and Policy Associate, Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, co-author of Losing our Future: How Minority Youth are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisishttp://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410936_LosingOurFuture.pdfdlosen@law.harvard.edu